I'm not afraid of the dark
by ShadowDianne
Summary: (Set after the season's finale) Many things have changed, many others are broken. And as they all kept walking forward magic and duty kept writing their story. (Princess Rover) "What princess?" She asked, moving closer "I thought you said that you weren't afraid"
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

I'm not afraid of the dark

The structure that hovered over the river in front of them glowed gloomily under the moon light, the flickering light of the fire Wil had managed to do with the rover's help making the shadows grow behind them. The sound of the forest around them seemed to only grow every time Amberle looked at the bushes.

The princess shivered and almost stood when she saw a movement near the first lines of trees, the smell of staled water around her clogging her senses for a second, making her mind go back to the putrid smell of the trolls they had so recently left behind, the corpses of the people they had probably left to fight for their own lives making her gulp and sigh.

"Take this" She heard, the sound of the voice the unmistakable one of Eretria, the rover girl looking at her from the other side of the bonfire, one hand holding her jacket, the other one hugging her knees. "The last thing I want is having you sick, princess"

The sentence was said with the ghost of a smile, lips curling in what seemed to be a smirk, but Amberle saw the shadow of worry on those brown eyes and so she reached for the jacket, not saying anything but a small "thanks" that got lost on the cold night of the forest, the grass and dried wood behind her boots crunching when she accommodated herself again on her spot, one small flame seeming to grow for a second under her prying eyes.

"Not needed" The grumbled response was, Eretria's eyes going back also to the fire, her now free hand hugging her knees just like the other, her newly uncovered skin seeming to glow under the flames, eyes growing distant under the golden shadows that seemed to haunt her behind her pupils.

Amberle remained silent, thinking again on Utopia, on how the village had been, the strange gifts from the past the ones that lived there seemed to hold into coming back to her.

"Do you think that's how the ancient cities were?" She found herself saying, playing with a wisp of grass. The hold of the sword glowed at her right, where she had left it once they had settled for passing the night. She wasn't quite sure if her voice had ever managed to get past her lips so after a few moments of silence she looked at Eretria when the girl's voice sounded above the cracking fire, the voice lacking its normal color, weariness touching each syllable.

"What do you mean?"

Amberle looked at the other brunette, her eyes capturing the light which licked her face, drawing each plane of it.

"The cities you used to have" She clarified, making a face when she realized the sudden stillness on Eretria's pose. "I meant…"

"I know what you meant"

Silence fell once again, both girls looking at the fire as they did so, SafeHaven's sign behind them, standing tall and proud against the sky in which a few stars were barely discernible.

"I don't know" Eretria finally said, making Amberle look at her once again, this time curious, one brow arching as she saw how the rover was smiling at her, half distant, half pained. "It's not like I was able to have an education of what they used to be"

The jab was precise and the elf found herself swallowing it, a bitter taste on the roof of her mouth as she did so. Leaving the wisp and caressing her hands, her mind went once again to Utopia; the lights of the party blinding her once again, the smells and voices she had heard seeming to surround her, her own words to the girl she was now looking at coming back, clouding her senses.

"I wasn't there because of the map" She finally said after a few seconds, her voice almost breaking with the effort, looking directly at Eretria's guarded eyes as she did so. The rover girl just shook her head and sighed. However, her whole body seemed to relax, the way her arms hugged her body changing ever so slightly, creating shadows on the until now lighten face.

"You weren't?"

The question was meant to be harsh, a reminder of the girl Amberle had found back on another kind of forest, back when she had tried to be a teacher and Eretria just a traveler. However, the princess heard the vulnerability behind the word, the way Eretria seemed about to stand up and run, the golden details that flickered over her skin glowing once as she moved, leaving the fire to do the rest.

"I… didn't tell Wil about the details" Amberle admitted, earning a scoff from the other brunette. "But that wasn't because of the map"

"Then why? And why are you telling me this?" Eretria asked, carefully looking at her boots, the heavy buckles of them clicking as she changed her position, hair falling at her right where she left it, lips curling in what seemed to be a sigh.

"Because I do care" The princess admitted, the echoes of another conversation rising between them as Wil kept sleeping soundly, his brows furrowing due to his dreams. "I didn't tell him about the map because I wanted to get you, not lose my time on telling him about the map, about what it meant"

The rover girl said nothing, a sigh rising from her form when she turned to look at Wil, a pensive look on her face. The boy seemed to have changed his dreams, now a placid look on his face, almost a smile on his lips. Amberle also looked at him, head turned to her left, her right hand now playing with the wisp once again, her right one hanging limply between her ankles. She smiled slightly at the thought of Cat and what she would have said regarding her posture. The blonde girl had always loved the kind of etiquette Amberle had always knew but hated.

"I wanted to believe that you would come" Eretria finally said, making the princess open her mouth, not sure of what to answer to that "I just… knew it, wanted to believe it" The sad smile was back on the rover's face and Amberle closed her hands into fists, remembering how frantic she had tried to search for her, how lost she had felt when she had found almost no trace of the other brunette.

"It wasn't easy" She admitted "But... we managed"

"Not with him at your side, right?"

The human was looking at Wil, the boy having now turned to sleep on his left side, his hair falling upon his closed eyes.

Chuckling, Amberle shook her head, giving the most non-committal shrug she could muster. The floor behind her felt dry when she touched it and for a second she bit her bottom lip before she answered, thinking briefly on Arborlon, on how everyone should be doing.

"He found half of the trail" She finally admitted. "Which I didn't"

The question of why was left on the air which seemed to suddenly turn heavier as Eretria looked straightly at Amberle, fire and moonlight lighting her face.

"I'm sorry we didn't manage to be there earlier" Amberle finally admitted, voice broken, eyes on the other's pupils. It was a strange thing to do, to look at Eretria and not receive a harsh word, a sneer or just silence. Biting her bottom lip she kept talking, remembering the way the other girl had looked at her back on the human ruins, on how she had helped her, on how they had shared a laugh. "I…"

Eretria stood and walked towards her, surrounding the fire and plopping herself down next to Amberle's right side, her eyes seeming to burn under the embers, face inscrutable.

"Don't worry princess" She said, voice low, tired "I know how to take care of myself"

Amberle tried to say something to that but the rover girl shrugged before starting to talk once again, voice growing high, tense, her muscles seeming to bulge against her skin. "I mean, I've always known how to, you guys came just in time, that's all"

Amberle glanced at her and narrowed her eyes, looking at the figure of the other girl, her own hands twitching under the presence of the brunette. "Still" She said "Thank you for saving us from the Trolls"

"Well" Eretria replied "I need to be sure that my investment is safe, don't I?"

Amberle didn't reply to that, half-sided smile appearing on her face as her eyes met with Eretria's, the girl's smirk growing bolder as she did so.

The fire cracking in front of them was the only sound that seemed to grow impossibly louder as time passed, the two of them refusing to go to sleep or to try and wake up the boy that kept sleeping next to them, eyes set in front of them, fingers playing and drawing on the floor next to the bonfire.

"You are free, you know?" Amberle said after minutes of silence, her voice hoarse due to that, eyes still set on the fire in front of them. She turned to her side where Eretria had stilled once again, her posture now rigid, hands between her crossed legs, leather shinning as she turned her body just a millimeter towards the princess, just enough to make the elf keep talking. "What you told us, about now having a say on this…"

"I remember what I said" Eretria replied, sighing when her voice rose between them, the shadows around them appearing to also stop to listen. "I was scared" She finally admitted and Amberle fought back the need to touch the girl's arm as she did so, a guarded glint appearing on the human's eyes as she kept talking, almost as she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I don't have any memories of myself being free, having the opportunity to think or decide what I wanted to do. I feel…"

"Trapped" Amberle finished for her, a sullen smile on her face when Eretria looked at her. "I may not be like you" She admitted "But when the Ellcrys talked to me… I thought that there wasn't a scape, that the only thing I could do was run."

"Yes, well" Eretria replied "For what I know running is not always the best option, you tend to end up eaten by a troll or something equally stupid"

"Like what's happening to us is normal"

The two girls shared a smile, a chuckle escaping both of their throats. This time it was Eretria the one who spoke first, her voice taking another edge, cautious, almost regretful. Amberle rested the wisp that had been now turned into shreds in the floor as she heard the rover's girl voice reaching for her. The fire in front of them had decreased, turned into just a pile of embers in where just a flickering flame seemed to play with the burned wood every now and them. With a worried glance behind them she fed the fire, the smell of it reaching her nostrils as Eretria talked.

"I also want to say something about Pykon, about what happened there"

Amberle hands turned into fists as she settled herself, thinking again on Remo, on his crazed eyes and the promise of pain and death that his words had inflicted on her body, on how even briefly, she had been tortured, played with.

"It wasn't your fault what happened there" She replied and as she eyed the other brunette she frowned; seeing a look of confusion passing by the rover girls eyes before the glow settled on something close to comprehension. "What happened with Remo" She added and Eretria shrugged and sighed, seeming to almost be about to say something but deciding otherwise.

"If I hadn't stopped to free the rest…" The rover girl started but her words floated between them, getting lost on the wind, not finding completion.

Amberle waited, curious of why the other girl seemed to be so open there, in the dark.

"That wasn't your fault either" Amberle replied softly, eliciting a scoff from the human.

"I know it wasn't" The girl said "But…"

Neither of them spoke, Wil mumbling something on his sleep before falling silent again.

"About Pykon" Amberle found herself saying and even though she had spent hours perfecting the art of lying with her grandfather she felt the tips of her ears grow impossibly hotter under the gaze of Eretria. "I'm sorry of what I said, about you not being better than Cephalo"

"He saved our lives at the end" The other girl deadpanned "Perhaps it's not a bad thing to be like him"

"Still" Amberle replied "I'm sorry, you…"

"I was trying to see how far you would want to go" Eretria said, cutting effectively Amberle's words "That's what I do, find weakness, try to get a rise of others. You weren't wrong on what you said"

"You were just doing that?" The princess said and she cursed herself on her breathy voice, on how it seemed to be almost about to break.

Eretria looked at her and smirked that same confident smirk she had given her back on the bathtub, a smirk of one who knows what they are doing, what they are about to do. The elf gulped at that, slowly, unable to stop her body from doing so.

"What princess? You wanted something else?"

Amberle closed her eyes, thinking on Wil, on what had happened between them, on what she knew had happened between him and the girl that was in front of her. On the words Eretria had said about them being in love with the same guy, on how she had felt when she had realized that the rover girl had fallen behind, wounded on the floor of that human ruins.

"No" She found herself saying "But" She added as she saw the smirk disappearing from Eretria's eyes back when she opened her own.

"But?" And there they were, the teasing smile, the dark, heavy-lidded eyes.

She sighed and licked her lips. They were at war, she reasoned herself, running against time and reason. And still she couldn't look away from Eretria's face, nor did the rover girl seem to be prone on doing it.

"You asked me if I was scared" She replied, her voice raising.

Eretria raised one brow, smiling at her, waiting for the rest of the answer.

"And I'm not"

The human girl chuckled at that, her body seeming to become the fire, Amberle painfully aware of her proximity, on the weight of her jacket on her own shoulders.

"Prove it"

The elf eyed the human, waiting for a comeback to happen, for the joke to keep going, for a word that would signal the end of their banter. Instead, the rover girl stared back at her, lips curling, eyes half-hidden, skin gold, silhouette drawn in the floor at her back, like the charcoal negative of those human pictures from the old days she had heard and read about on books.

"Eretria…" She started, a warning, something that the human girl didn't seem to hear.

"What princess?" She asked, moving closer "I thought you said that you weren't afraid"

And Amberle wasn't, she really wasn't, but as she kept looking at Eretria she felt the beginning of something back on the pit of her stomach, her chest fluttering as she kept eyeing the rover girl, the one who she had hated less than a few days ago, one that had helped her more than once even if that had been grumbling the whole time, one who had been adamant on taking care of a wound, of keeping her warm, on being sure she was ok.

"I'm not" She whispered, her eyes going from the rover lips to her eyes, noticing for the first time that she hadn't realized but they were in fact much closer than before, Eretria's smirk growing, a sigh escaping her parted lips, almost as if she was preparing herself as Amberle's lungs seemed to also maintain themselves void, unable to breathe.

"Then prove it"

The whisper came in puffs of air against the princess lips, a caress on them she almost missed, her body arching slightly as she rose, meeting the now half kneeled girl halfway, her eyes closing the second their lips almost met, a touch, a millimeter away.

 _Prove it_

She had never backed off from a dare, not when she had been a young girl, not now.

And so she kissed her, moving her head to one said, one of her hands entangling itself on the girl's hair, touching the scalp of the human, arching her back, feeling the other's body against her own, the jacket falling from her shoulders as she did so, fire consuming the skin that touched the other's body, creating lines of ashen desire on it.

Eretria's answer was just as quick and oncw they finally parted, still a millimeter away it was Amberle's turn to smirk.

"Told you" She said "I'm not afraid"

Eretria's eyes grew darker at that and from her lips fell one single command.

"Prove it"


	2. One

**A/N So... after what happened in the finale I decided to step in and keep writing this fic. Beforehand though, there is some aspects of it that I would like to share with all of you who might be willing to read this craziness ^^**

 **I'm going to follow what happened at the end of episode tenth so yes; that means that Amberle will still be the Ellcrys for quite some more time but I promise to get to it when the story arrives at that point. This also means that the storyline about Eretria and pretty much everyone will be based on what I think could be an idea for them to follow so some OC might appear as the story unfolds. For the people that know about the books in which the series is based off I will however not rely heavily on them (since ffnet doesn't allow such things with that particular author) but some characters and places will probably be recognizable for you all. I will also try to stick to series-canon as much as possible but feel free to question or argue with me if you have any doubts!**

 **PS: As stated before I don't plan to follow the book canon and since this is a princess rover story I will of course just broke a few rules about them so all be warned about it.**

 **My Tumblr is shadowdianne in case someone wants to follow me though I must warn you all that I post a lot of SQ fics and drabbles there Xd**

 **And there, sorry for this long-ass explanation, I hope to keep my future notes shorter than this one!**

 **On with the story!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters here portrayed.**

One

The horse stomped the ground as it neighed, the forest surrounding both the beast and the boy giving back the sound as a gloomy echo that made the half-elf's ears to prickle.

"Easy, boy" Wil whispered as he palmed the horse strong neck, his right hand still holding tightly the reins while looking suspiciously at the darkest shadows of the forest around him. He had already been surprised by trolls and he didn't exactly want to be in front of one once again.

Gulping down the uneasy feeling of being exposed in such terrains he pulled the reins slightly at his right, making the horse move slowly to the main path he had been following ever since he left Arborlon's lands. He hadn't had any problems at first and so he had grown confident on how to reach Safehold's quickly once again. However, last time he had done that path it had been Amberle the one who had guide both of their horses back to the Elven city and after hours of trying to find the quickest path using the river that run between the thick tall trees that signaled Elven territory Wil had found himself lost in the arboreal maze.

Sighing and touching briefly the pouch he now had permanently hanging from his neck he found solace feeling the weight and shape of the three stones, the scars that they had left on the palm of his hand still slowly healing under the leather gloves he wore. It had just been a few hours since Amber… since the Ellcrys had been restored but the bloody wound was already itching, which was something that an older wound just would do. It seemed that not only strength could be snatched from the stones and that alone made him nibble his lower lip, the horse keeping moving forward as he did so, its ears trembling from time to time, almost as if it was able to sense something that Wil couldn't.

Letting the pouch fall again against the necklace he always wore the half elf let himself stretch as much as possible on the saddle, feeling the phantom pain on the lower part of his back, muscles and bones protesting for the many hours he had already passed mounting the horse, nightfall already beginning to become apparent on the way the shadows seemed to grow around them, darkness starting to become a nuisance both for him and the horse.

He, however, didn't want to stop so near of what he had learnt in the hard way that was troll territory and thus he kept moving forward, thoughts becoming blurry as tiredness started to take over.

The horse kept moving, the sound of the near river lulling the blond until his grip on the saddle started to falter, his eyes snapping open when he realized how close to fall asleep he actually was.

Looking at the mass of trees he licked his lips and sighed, knowing that sooner or later he would need to stop. Taking into the still agitated state of the horse he focused on its crest. "Just a few more minutes" He promised himself and the beast, seeing that a little bit forward the trees opened up, the troll infested grounds seeming to end at the other side of what appeared to be an old gate barely standing anymore and with a sign at one side he couldn't distinguish but due to the dimming light. It wasn't the easiest place to defend himself in but it would make easier to see them coming.

Touching the pouch at his neck he thought again on how powerless he had been against the trolls at Utopia's border. Gulping down another wave of worry he choose to focus on Eretria, the girl's face haunting him every time he closed his eyes. Amberle's features also came to his mind though, the last time he had seen the girl forever embedded on himself.

Gripping the reigns he felt the anger he had felt towards Allanon come back in full force; the man had lied to them since the beginning, no matter how good his intentions had been and as bile reached from the depths of his, otherwise, empty stomach he felt the sorrow of having failed Amberle as well as Eretria even though he had promised to help them both.

The tiredness of the quick succession of trips he had been forced to do took hold on his mind once again though, making his anger slowly blurry itself, the concern from Eretria's well-being growing on the back of his head, the promise he had made to the girl swirling inside of it.

Just as the horse left behind the last line of trees and started to move towards the other side of the clearing, grey-light the only source he could use to see the path in front of him, he heard the flopping sound of two big wings he had known to recognize not so long before. The horse jumped forward as he squinted his eyes, lips parting as he felt the humid air hitting his face. However, as the silhouette of a roc started to become more obvious just a few meters in front of him the nervousness of the animal grew stronger and even though the half-elf tried to keep the horse as calm as possible, still unsure if the roc truly was Genewen, he soon found that almost impossible.

Suddenly a loud piercing sound could be heard and the horses' ears moved in that direction, the jerky movements it had been doing subsiding almost completely while the roc finally landed in front of Wil, the growing darkness making it impossible at first for the boy to recognize if the animal was being mounted. However, as soon as the dust settled the tall figure of a smiling Perk was evident for the tired eyes of the blond boy.

"Wil?" The elf exclaimed as he took off the glasses he used to shield them to the cold temperatures and winds he was subjected to while flying with Genewen.

"Perk" The blond replied with a smile as the elf boy dismounted the roc, the animal itself doing a sound between a groan and a squeak who made the horse's neck snap at its side, still unnaturally calm though.

"Sorry" The lanky elf said while showing to a frowning Wil what seemed to be a small whistle. The object disappeared quickly in one of the many pockets the boy seemed to have on his clothes. "One of my instructors showed me this trick once, when I saw what seemed to be you I didn't think that my roc could be a problem until Genewen started to scare the horse"

"Don't worry" Wil replied, his fears momentarily forgotten as he came down from the saddle, his legs stretching painfully as he did so. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going back to Olden Moor"

The elf nodded as he touched slowly the horse's skin, the animal's big eye looking briefly at his silhouette as if it didn't know what to expect from him. Smiling and shrugging the wing raider retreated his hand and showed Wil what seemed to be a piece of parchment tightly folded at least half a dozen times.

"We received the news about the battle in Arborlon this same morning" He informed "And I was sent to show our respects to the new king, I was about to rest for the night so I was looking for a spot to land when I saw your horse, my spectacles did the rest"

Wil looked briefly at the glasses Perk had hanging from his neck, the remaining light focusing on them as it died down.

"The ceremony was a quick one" He finally amended, not knowing exactly what to say. He knew that Wing Riders had a problematic relationship with the elven king. That much he could remember from his father's rumbling and for what he had learned in Shady Vale from the occasional travelers that had come to the place.

Perk, however, didn't seem to care about the political situation and nodded once, turning back to look at Genewen who had been until now grooming her feathers with her long beak.

"I'm sure" He replied "And what about you? Did you manage to find your other friend back? Last time I saw you you weren't as near as Arborlon as you are now"

The question made Wil's worry to come back, Amberle's last words coming to him in the form of echoing words that seemed to resound on his brain as they repeated themselves.

"Yes…" He started slowly "We managed to get what we needed on time" At Perk's questioning gaze he sighed and shrugged, the chilly wind that seemed to be growing stronger as time passed making him shudder. "I'm actually trying to find her back though, the human girl"

The idea of calling Eretria "human girl" made him almost wince; the plain description not enough for what Eretria was. Perk seemed about to ask more about it when the roar of some creature rose from the trees that were behind the blonde's a few birds cawing as they fled away, they black silhouettes framing against the much darker than before sky above the two boys.

"How about we find someplace safer to make a camp and you tell me about this?" Perk offered "Perhaps I can help you"

Wil bit his lower lip weighing his options. He really didn't have that many and after a battle with himself he finally realized that it would be better for him to actually eat something and have some rest.

Wait for me

"Lead the way"

* * *

Catania closed her eyes as she sighed, the back of her head resting against the Ellcrys, one she refused to call as such as the name of her best friend kept falling from her lips every time she entered inside the place. Which after what had happened with Bandon had been quite a lot.

The light outside was dim and the lights from inside the room that held the magical tree glowed warm against the stony floor, the damages the place had suffered through the battle almost erased now by the ever efficient servants of the castle.

"You would have felt proud of Ander" She talked to the silent room, the bark of the tree at her back almost seeming to thrum at the mention of that name. Almost. "He did wonderfully on the ceremony"

Hugging her knees closer to her body she let the rest of her clothes fell limply at her sides, the loose tunic folding itself around her ankles where her digits crumpled it. "After that there was a banquet" She said, her mouth opening in which Amberle had called more times than she could count her "trademark smirk" "There were those little pastries you used to love so much until you sneaked in the kitchen and ate a bunch of them, remember? You were sick for two days after that…"

Her voice trailed off, eyes opening again, now glazed with tears. Freeing her ankles she sighed, her right hand starting immediately to play with the ring she had on his left one, the silver band moving incessantly as she tried to think on what else to say. Allanon had said that with time Amberle could talk to all of them again very much like the former Ellcrys had done. However Catania feared that she wouldn't be chosen in case that happened, remorse eating her up.

"You always said that I was strong" She finally muttered "And smart" Smiling a tearful smile she kept talking, voice shuddering as it passed through gritted teeth. "But I made a mistake, a mistake that maybe will make that all you have done won't mean anything"

She had thought a lot about what Allanon had said about Bandon back at the cell, what she had known about the boy's condition and there was the nagging feeling that the boy indeed could be a danger, a danger he maybe wasn't even aware of.

"Allanon said that talking to you could help us" She rephrased, changing her thoughts once away, refusing to go there for now. "To make amends of what you did, Ander said that he was going to be here tomorrow… I hope that turning into a king doesn't make him boring"

The joke was lost in the silence that seemed to be wrapped around the Ellcrys' bark, the rustling leaves of the tree the only answer Catania got.

"Wil has also been here before, I don't know if you have noticed" Turning her body the blonde elf eyed the tall tree, waiting perhaps for a reaction. "He has gone though, something about the rover girl… I hope she is okay. For what he told me… She wasn't what she looked like back the day she entered in the palace"

Silence, albeit the wind seemed to get stronger for a second, almost as if the tree higher branches had moved. It was impossible though, a figment of Catania's imagination and the blonde chastised herself for that.

"I really miss you" She murmured while standing, her right hand touching the tree's bark and caressing it. "Chosen will be elected again soon" She added in a whisper, the memory of Amberle begging her to help her to escape the castle haunting her words as she talked "At least is what the Elders are talking about, they always forgot to check those secret doors we found back when we were children"

A secretive smile parted her lips for a second before growing serious once again. "I guess that after what happened with the last ones they will need more time than what they would want though so I guess that until now…"

She turned, unable to finish the sentence. Bandon's face suddenly coming back to her, the boy's eyes pitch black as he told her about how he was losing his mind. Allanon had been cryptic about it but she feared that her best friend wasn't her anymore also.

Magic always came with a price after all.

The door opened under her hands and she casted one last look at the tree before she stepped outside, the two guards at both sides of the gates saluting her briefly with a nod.

No, she thought, she wouldn't think like that.

* * *

The fire licked the remaining of the embers that had once been one of the tallest fires Wil had ever done on his life, the blond's throat dry as much as those embers after his murmured explanation to Perk who was looking at him now with wide wide-looking eyes, Genewen at his back, supporting him while she slept soundly.

"Wow" He finally said.

"I know" Wil replied back, eyes never leaving the fire, his hands playing with the stones he had showed to the wing raider a few minutes before. The blue rocks seemed to glow as his thoughts drifted back to Eretria but when he eyed them intently the light seemed to shift, making him shook his head.

"So that… Safehold place" Perk started "Is where you were heading before?"

Wil nodded, looking at Perk enough to see the doubt filling the elf's eyes.

"Wil…" The lanky boy started carefully "If she was in a troll's nest…"

"She is tough" Wil stated firmly "She took care of three trolls right in front of me Perk, I… need to go there, help her"

The wing raider sighed and averted his eyes. Wil gulped down at the sight of the slowly healing flesh around the place the elf's ear had once been. Now that it wasn't caked with mud or leaves he could see that the cut hadn't been as quick as he had originally thought and the pain the other man probably was constantly in made him wince.

Perk seemed to sense that and looked back at him, smiling weakly at him before rising a shoulder, letting it drop after a second of silence.

"It's not as bad as it seems" He provided which Wil didn't believe in the slightest but he let it go. Wounds weren't exactly easy to talk about, he knew as much. Silence stretched from that point though and as the half-elf started to think if it wasn't for the best to go to sleep the other boy talked again, his voice taking a deeper tone as he did.

"In case she is alive… what do you plan to do?"

Wil opened his mouth only to find that he didn't know. Everything had happened really fast; last time the three of them had been together Amberle had been… well, her. He didn't exactly had the correct explanation for Eretria if –when, he corrected himself- the girl asked him about where the elf girl was.

"I don't know" He finally admitted. He still wanted to become a healer thought after everything that had happened he really wasn't as sure as before that that would be his career anymore. Still, Storlock could be a place for him to start over, to maybe even try to find a solution for Amberle's condition. Perhaps he could talk with Eretria and…

And what?

It wasn't like the rover girl to settle in one place, the stubborn brunette would probably want to go back to Arborlon and nag everyone until they found a solution for Amberle. He had said that damned sentence back in the tunnels about the two girls being friends but what he had realized back in the Ellcrys room that morning was that the three of them had indeed become that, and he didn't know how to compute those thoughts. Let alone use them.

"I still need to find her first" He finalized with a nod, trying to look far more sure of himself than he really was. "Then I will think about what to do next"

Perk hummed at that and looked over his shoulder at the sleeping roc, his left hand caressing the big feathers briefly when the Genewen grumbled, looking very much like the dog Wil remembered his uncle having back when he had been younger. The old dog had moved on the exact same way whenever he was allowed to sleep inside the place. Which wasn't much precisely for that.

He also missed his uncle, he realized. Perhaps that was another stop he could need to do at some point, when everything settled down.

"I will help you find the path back to Safehold" Perk finally said, his voice raising over the dying fire and the suffocating silence that waited around them.

"And your letter?" Wil asked back, frowning.

The wing raider though shrugged "We are a few hours away from Arborlon at Genewen speed, I can always say that I encountered winds that made me rest for a few days or something, in Olden Moor they would probably don't expect me either, things are quite chaotic on most Elven settlements after all"

Wil found himself smiling at Perk's words; with the help of the wind raider perhaps he was able to find the place faster, after all everything he needed to do was to find the outskirts in where it stood the entrance to the tunnels.

"Thank you" He said and the elf boy nodded.

"Don't worry" He answered with a vigorous wink "We will find your friend"

* * *

Colors, smells, ghost-like memories that made her blink slowly in the vastness of her mind, the light changing so slowly that she wasn't able to even realize that it had.

It was calm, calm and silent and she smiled, happy to be in such a state. Happy to just be.

The feeling of warmth, of cold had also disappeared, the words barely holding any meaning for her anymore. As pain or thirst. Feelings were different now, words, letters, which drew themselves in the air of her conscience before floating away.

However, something, like the beak of an intruding nightingale, threatened to burst the quiet bubble, a name, feelings she had forgotten about, falling like drops, painting the vastness with the figure of someone she had once met, back in a time when she hadn't been her. Or when she hadn't even existed.

"….Something about the rover girl"

"Rover girl"

"Rover…"

She played with the words, trying to find once again the contempt that she had been immersed in before. It was useless though, the shape in front of her made her uncomfortable, achy, as if something was pulling her, poking her, a caress over lips, a taunting little smirk.

Silence, colors, the scream of a girl, a hand over a mouth, the quiet feeling of water, a proposition.

Eretria.

Amberle's eyes opened.


	3. Two

**A/N Hi there! Sorry for the tardiness on posting this new chapter. I had planned to post twice a week but I'm currently on my pre-exams week and things have been a little bit hectic at the uni for me ^^''**

 **Either way I'm back here. Thank you so much to all of you who reviewed and comments as much as those of you who favorited or left kudos. (To those who did neither I also hope you are liking the story so far and thank you for giving it a go!)**

 **So... I will make this quick. If you guys have a preference for longer or shorter chapters just let me know! I don't bite, (mostly XD) and reviews always make me happy. Any doubts or things you would want to say I'm shadowdianne on Tumblr and twitter ;)**

 **Also, I'm sorry for the slightly less trepidation in this chapter, I promise that things will start to happen soon (next chapter probably) but I needed to get Eretria settled and there is too many things I need to write about her!**

 **PS: italics are either for whenever Amberle is contacting with someone or for flashbacks and thoughts.**

 **Aaaaand, let's get started!**

Two

 _Darkness surrounded her, her movements slow and heavy, almost as if her body was covered in tar. A dull ache on some place in her body, too disconnected of her conscience to know where it was, made her cringe. Blood, screaming, pain._

 _Eretria gasped as a tendril of something that wasn't her mind caressed the silhouette of her own conscience. A movement that caused the pain she felt around her to intensify, a choking sensation clogging her throat, worry and need for something nagging the back of her head, closing on her, writing on the shadows that seemed to grow thicker._

 _"Eretria"_

 _The voice who spoke was soft but urgent, holding a timber the rover girl found herself smirking at, her beaten up memory producing the name even before her lips managed to form it._

 _"Amberle?"_

 _The elven girl, however, didn't seem to have much time, the sudden pull below her stomach had the human girl gasping again, the fuzzy corners of reality starting to seep between the dream._

 _"Eretria" Amberle repeated "You need to wake, now"_

-.-

Eretria woke to a rusty room, the only producing light one bubble that hung above her head, the dim light no better than any dying fire of a fireplace but suffice enough for the girl to distinguish the room she was in and the made-up bed with scraps of clothes she had been sleeping in until now. Frowning, she tried to straighten herself, wincing when both the back of her head and her right palm protested at the movement, a soft yelp escaping from her lips as she looked at her injured hand, the light and the caked blood that covered some parts of her skin didn't helping her at all but enough to make her distinguish the poorly bandaged gaping hole she had inflicted on herself by opening the portal of the bloodfire.

That idea alone had the girl looking frantically at her sides, fragments of her last minutes in the cold swirling room before she had understood what those old whispers had meant coming back to her mind; the macabre laughter of the two women who had tried to protect the fire ringing on her ears, making her shudder. The walls of the room she was in looked suspiciously the same that the ones they had walked through to get to the room with the bloodfire, the chipped paint and dusty corners making her gulp as she tried to understand the fuzzy images her still aching mind was sending her.

Trolls, the tunnels, Amberle reappearing with the seed... the fight.

Her eyes widened as she started to remember what had happened, the severed muscles on her hand protesting as she clenched it.

-.-

 _The smell of trolls was one Eretria had never liked; swamp and mud. The trolls that tended to live in the forest had that particular odor that made her gag and this time, as fury and worry ate her up about both her herself and the others, her body response was the same, a deep nausea that made her stumble, probably also due to the loss of the blood she had suffered earlier. Gasping while trying to kick the two trolls that escorted her under their heavy clothes she found herself forcefully kneeled in front of one of them, slightly shorter perhaps, whose eyes seemed to shine under the mask. She didn't need to wait however to know what kind of interest she could hold to a pack of trolls though since the troll pulled off his mask, showing the human features of someone she knew very well._

 _"You?"_

 _One of Cephalo's best men grinned lewdly at her, his blue porcine eyes seeming for a second so close to the ones of a troll Eretria shuddered, her whole body aching as she tensed her muscles, ready to jump._

 _"Hello kiddo"_

 _The rover girl growled under her breath; it hadn't been that long since she had been sleeping in a tent, trying to pry off those man's hands from her body and the gagging feeling returned; this time with thinned lips and worried eyes to match._

 _"What are you doing here?" She demanded, chin high, voice far stronger than what she really felt. The man grinned smugly at her as he removed the gloves that covered his hands, dirty and muddy as he approached her. One of them getting close enough to her chin to lift it, the smell of fermented alcohol hitting Eretria's nose as he did so._

 _"I think the most appropriated question is what you are doing here"_

 _The rover girl was about to snarl some response she would probably have get her killed when a voice she could also recognize came behind other two trolls, the pack silenced and curious around the circle they had created for her and the man. Eretria turned though, her shoulders protesting when the trolls that restrained her didn't budge a millimeter, the pain making her back to arch._

 _"I think you are right on asking what are we doing here though" The owner of the voice said, small smile on his thin lips, small cuts and bruises covering his face. He had one arm wrapped up, wounded by the angle he hold it around his body and as he walked towards her Eretria recognized a limp that it hadn't been there last time she had seen him._

 _"I thought..." She started, angered with herself as she let her guard down, Tye's smug smirk growing as he positioned himself in front of her._

 _"I know what you though, that I had died" Venom seeped between his next words as he continued talking, voice spiteful and vengeful. "Like the many ones who died in Utopia"_

 _Eretria held her chin high at that, refusing to feel guilty about it, the memory of a talk, a bonfire, Amberle's quiet questions about the whole situation back in the human settlement returning at her though, making her set her jaw as she watched at the suddenly morphing face of Tye from one of hatred to one of almost gleeful curiosity._

 _"Fortunately for me" He started conversationally "Someone like me doesn't get killed in the first night of a conflict, not when you have lived as far as I have done in Troll's territory and so when I was captured instead of being killed I managed to make them carry me to their chief"_

 _"They can speak?" Eretria asked, eyeing the two mountains at her sides. Trolls weren't precisely known for their ability to talk, or even to be civilized. Out of the four races they were definetely the most dangerous ones._

 _"They aren't able to speak as we do" Tye replied with a shrug "But I could get past that. They are currently tracking and either killing or making prisoner as much food as they are able to for the winter so when I started explaining why we couldn't have provided them with meat this time, a failure your friends are responsible for, one of the prisoners listened to me talking about this rover girl with particular markings on her skin"_

 _"And I recognized you" Her father's man intervened, a cruel smile on his face._

 _"Interesting story except it doesn't explain why they didn't kill you like the rats you are" The girl replied, the dizziness she had been fighting against until now growing momentarily as the rover approached her once again, his foul odor reaching her nose again, sleepless nights returning to her memory, the shuddering step back she made making the man to grin at her._

 _"They want food" Tye added, a shrug making his shoulders to tremble "And it happened that my friend here remembered that one of your... friends, is not only an elven girl but a princess. Trolls went crazy for that one"_

 _"So now what?" The words came out slurred, Eretria feeling her body starting to falter, the blood loss too much for her body to be able to keep up._

 _She never heard the answer though, since before Tye could say anything her world went black._

-.-

The sound of a key on the beaten door that stood on one side of the room made her come back from her reverie, the same urgency as before, as if someone was screaming for her to wake up, make her jump, her features completely schooled as Tye entered in her room, his own face darkened by the different torches that light up now the tunnels Eretria, Will and Amberle had used hours before.

" _Please, be okay"_ She thought seconds before the door was closed with both herself and Tye inside the room. _"Both of you"_

* * *

 _Sound didn't matter as it was only a figment, but Amberle found herself smiling softly at the vague idea of the waves of the sea, reluctantly licking the shore of her aunt's refugee. The idea left her frowning though, Eretria's face overlapping with the soothing image, making her thoughts to tremble, the shapes and silhouettes that had been until now painting their shadow in front of her eyes moved a little, letting her see... and listen._

Ander touched the tree's trunk with his left hand sighed, the other hand caressing his temple in where the weight of the crown seemed to have taken hold of him. Closing his eyes as he gulped down he almost smiled at her niece's new form, his pupils unfocused when he opened them again.

His body felt twice as heavy as his head and for a second the knowledge that he had a flask full of alcohol under his robs made him feel grounded, safer. Which he knew was a mistake, it always had been. Taking a step backwards she glanced at the leaves, their crimson color standing against the almost white sky due to the early hour. Which didn't matter of course since he had barely slept since his coronation.

It didn't matter how much he tried to, the look on his brother's eyes, the knowledge that he could have been him, the knowledge of so many deaths piling up against his conscience kept him from sleeping, afraid of his dreams.

His thoughts were cut short by Allanon's deep voice resounding on the room, the druid looking at him somberly once he turned, hands clasped in front of him, the markings he possessed along his face and neck seeming to stand even more these days.

"Trouble sleeping?"

Ander snorted at that; the inanity of the words making him want to cry. Something he had been very close to do so in the past few days. Which he didn't want to, not with everything he still needed to do, for him, for Arborlon, for Amberle.

"The gnomes have asked for lands" He said "Which is a petition I can't exactly refuse since they helped us against the demons"

Allanon didn't say anything at all, not surprised in the slightest with the politic game Ander was telling her. If something came from the wars apart from the deaths were treaties and pacts, pacts that almost never were followed through and led to even more loss.

"The council doesn't want to give anything to them, they say that what the gnomes did was a duty for the four lands. Still the federation didn't send us any help and we have yet need to hear something about them"

Ander voice was now rougher, sharper, his words full of tiredness as he kept his hand on the tree's trunk, almost as if he was asking for its strength as he kept talking, frowning, bright eyes dulled due to the rage.

"And everything I can do is to keep myself from falling" He continued and the druid was sure that a part of the elf's mind had forgotten about his presence. "I was never the one in line to be a king. Everyone was aware of that"

"And yet you decided to pick up the crown" Allanon said, his voice strong and powerful, ricocheting on the walls of the place as he approached the now startled king. "That says a lot more about you than anything else"

The elf settled his jaw, turning back to look at the Ellcrys.

"You said she would speak to us" He said instead of answering to the druid's words.

"In time" Allanon replied, taking another step and positioning himself next to the king, his eyes focused on the trunk's knots.

"How much?" Ander's voice was deep, almost a growl and Allanon looked at her, noticing the bump from the flask under his clothes.

"That's something I can't tell, is up to her"

Ander let out a joyless laugh at those words, his teeth flashing as he stared at Allanon, hair obscuring his eyes. "You can't say an estimation?"

The druid sighed and shrugged "When something like this happens… there is just one druid who wrote about the process before. Is not the whole process and so there are things we… I can't understand"

"She will be okay?" Ander asked impatiently, not liking in the slightest the tone of the human.

"There is a chance that there isn't a she anymore once Amberle decides to talk" Allanon finally admitted, regret flashing on his pupils, remembering what Pyria had told him before her death. About how they will inevitably lead all those who confide in him to their own destruction.

She hadn't been wrong.

"What are you talking about?"

"Amberle's conscience is linked to the Ellcrys, is her the one who is keeping the tree alive. That kind of symbiosis… can take its price"

"By turning my niece into what?" Ander demanded, his voice rising, his fists clenching.

"I don't know"

The punch was quick and precise and even if Allanon would have been able to stop it- which a part of him doubted- he would probably have let it hit him. The pain was bearable but still he winced as he felt blood starting to drop in slow rivulets from his brow, his whole body shaking due to the strength Ander had used.

"I'm sorry" He said as the king exited the room, completely enraged. The room fell silent after his words except from one quiet murmur from the trees leaves, something that made him frown before he shook his head. Too soon, it couldn't be.

* * *

Tye smirked as he sat next to the girl, Eretria narrowed her gaze and moved as furthest from him as possible, tiredness making her slower than what she would have wanted.

"What do you want now?" She asked sullenly, remembering all too well the short-lived sensation of perhaps having found a place where she could call herself at home.

Tye was holding a thick book, one Eretria remembered all too well and as he put his sane hand on top of the cover Eretria's eyes went to her own hand, the one she had used to open the door, her blood sipping between the poorly taken care of wound.

"Sorry about that" The man said, making Eretria look at him suspiciously "Without my instruments that was as far as I could go, you will perhaps have phantom pain from your muscles once the wound heals but…"

The rover hummed, not entirely sure of what to say to that. Last time she had woken up and had found the man she had in front of her she had had a knife. Now she had only the sensation of being lost. Which she hated.

"I will need to pay you by being offered as meat to the next troll that happens to be near?" She deadpanned instead, hiding her frustration behind her anger "Because last time it didn't work well"

Tye's eyes flared and Eretria had the satisfaction of seeing him flushed, book still on his lap.

"Don't you speak of things you will understand"

"Funny because as far as I'm concerned the one who is playing with fire and trolls are you"

The man smirked cruelly before looking back at the book. "You know, when Hebel returned talking something about destiny and prophecies and magic I didn't believe him" He started and Eretria remembered the man, his voice, echoing in her. "Magic is extinct, just as much as the old humans. Extinct and dead. Still, the information interested me and when you arrived with a map of the exam place I had send him… I just decided to see if I could know more about this, about that so called destiny"

Eretria settled her jaw, not wanting to give anything to Tye who was still looking at the book, voice so soft the girl needed to make an effort to understand everything.

"And then you started saying the same things he had said, about how you needed to go there, about demons and things no human have seen. You, a human, talking and being with elves, calling them your friends"

"They are my friends" The girl growled at which Tye raised a brow, cruel and cold as he looked at her.

"And yet every time we found each other you are alone. I'm wondering if that's how friendship works…"

Eretria swallowed, not wanting to let him win that time, remembering the way Amberle had talked to her next to the entrance, remembering Will's insistence of not being able to leave her behind, on Amberle's relieved eyes when they had found each other.

"At least I have them, whereas you are living with the trolls, guess who is the pet in that part"

Tye merely hummed at that, not answering to the jibe.

"You know Eretria" The name rolling off his tongue, making the rover girl want to smack him just by using it "Better if you get used to this place, I don't plan on losing you, not again"

With that he stood and left, the book safely clutched against his chest, his smirk widening when the door closed behind him.

* * *

 _Amberle saw the bubbles, the other her she had been feeling ever since… what? When? She couldn't quite place the idea of time, not when time and space seemed things that didn't quite matter for her. She didn't follow that other conscience though, for now, even if it was strong, far stronger than the one she could call as her own._

 _She needed to be there though, she needed to be. A promise perhaps, a name. She had the feeling that there was also another name she should be remembering, another kind of feeling. Still, she refused to dwell on that._

 _She had things she needed to finish._


	4. Three

**A/N As some of you may know I'm also on the SQ fandom and I spent last week and a half finishing a collab with the amazing misslane so I couldn't write down this chapter until the start of this week and exams and real life happened so until today I haven't had the opportunity to end up the last lines of this chapter. (So, so sorry)**  
 **I know that I'm taking it slow and you want as much interactions between Eretria and Amberle as possible. I promise that those won't be taking long, I just need a few more chapters to settle everything I imagine could be going on after the season finale happened. But I will be writing things about them soon enough ;)**  
 **However, if you don't want to wait I'm open to short princess rover prompts over my tumblr (shadowdianne) in case some want to see sweet fluff or lewd smut from these two ;)**

Three

The place was as empty as the druid had asked the servants to be and just the barely there sunlight of the first hours of the evening illuminated the room as Allanon stood in the middle of it, eyes downcasted to the bed where Bandon had been until a few days ago.

Sighing, the druid walked towards the mattress and sat at the edge of the bed, his hands hanging limpidly between his ankles as he let his mind wander, trying to find the connection of the one who had been his disciple. The effort made him frown, the tattoos and marking on his neck and temples becoming more pronounced for a second.

"Are you still trying to find him?" A feminine voice broke his concentration, making him blink away from the speck of magic he always felt before his conscience turned up empty. Turning and looking at the sleep-deprived looking elf that stood bravery at the other side of the bed he found himself shaking his head once, strength drained from him.

"More like trying to sense him" He finally said as Catania fully entered the room and sat next to him, the clothes she wore hanging around her body in the same way her eyes seemed dull and lacking of energy. "But I was never able to read his mind and that's making the task even more difficult"

"Perhaps is for the best" The young elf replied, skin between her eyes creased as she enunciated the words, the skin around her lips equally wrinkled and the druid closed his eyes for a second as the words of Pyria came back to him. A second time in too few hours for his liking "He said he needed to go"

The druid hummed at that and eyed the blonde elf once again, noticing the signs of lack of sleep along with something that shone on those eyes, regret.

"You aren't responsible for what happened to him" He said slowly, his voice echoing through the empty room as it reached Catania's ears. The elf smiled sadly before taking a gulp of air. Her voice the next thing that followed Allanon's.

"I helped him"

"So did I" The druid replied and the two of them let silent fall between them, not knowing what else to say about the young elf boy.

Catania was the first to speak, her voice soft and tired and yet full of a barely contained sadness that made Allanon want to close his eyes. "I found King Ander on the Ellcrys room, I wanted to be with…" A second, doubt ebbing between the words "Amberle, but he said that he wanted to talk with her"

"He is waiting for her to talk to him" The druid replied and his clothes felt much more heavy than what they were, constructing his chest for a second as he feigned ignorance.

"She won't, will she?" Catania replied just as quickly, her body finally facing Allanon who found himself speechless with the amount of loss that shone on the woman's pupils, the carefully braided hair of the servant glowing like a halo with the aid of the last ray of sun that seemed to bath the room. "That's why he seemed upset when I asked for you"

"You asked for me?" The question alone seemed strange on the druid's lips as Catania nodded once, eyes still trained on his.

Allanon eyed the woman for a long second before nodding to himself, his carefully selected words filling the air between them. "Ander and I… had a talk a few hours ago" He admitted "And what I told him wasn't something he wanted to hear"

"She isn't coming back" Catania whispered, her hands hugging her midriff, her back now slowly bending, the posture she had so thoroughly learned during her times as the princess servant gone. "Is she?"

Allanon found himself questioning if he should really keep lying, the words pushing between his lips after the way Ander had reacted. "Only time will tell. The Ellcrys is a powerful being, one that needs to be intertwined with an elf subconscious. There is no way of telling how much of Amberle will be back once she finally… returns"

Catania stared at the man for a long moment, eyes turning from dulled to angry as they sparked with recognition only to settle back on hurt as the druid kept silent in front of her, eyes glowing on their own with tiredness. "You knew that"

"I had my suspicions" He provided "The Ellcrys is not something that we know much about, no records had been taken from it ever since we first created it and even the magic that involved the whole process is something that today I can't really comprehend, not like the druids before me did"

The elf hummed at his only response and played with her fingers, words still visible on her eyes as she eyed him. "A few days ago" She finally admitted "I went to… her and I talked. There was…. Something for a second. As if she had heard me"

"Perhaps she did" The druid provided, not knowing what else to say. There were too many things that he could though, but most of them were prepared to kill however hope the young woman in front of him may harbor. And for what he had already done he refused.

"There you have Pyria" He found himself thinking "Not playing anymore"

"Bandon will sooner or later do something that will make him vulnerable to my tracking spell" He finally said instead "When that happens I will be able to tell you where he is"

Catania blinked slowly at the revelation, standing and approaching the door once again, the room divider shuddering when she touched it as she steadied along it. "Good" She whispered quickly. "Thank you"

Allanon nodded at that, unsure if he had said the right thing for the blonde elf.

"The king also told me that you are supposed to attend the next meeting with the Council" The girl informed him and her voice had grown tired and far older than her years. "He said that if I was able to find you, you were due to report back to him as soon as you were able"

"I will be there then" The man allowed with a curt nod, standing as tall as he was and approaching the elf who just nodded and exited the room, casting one last glance to the bed where the two of them had been seated.

The druid just followed her, not wanting to think once again on the losses that he could feel in the air every time he walked down the castle's aisles. Darkness settled on the room behind them once the door was tightly closed.

* * *

 _Amberle frowned, the beach in front of her far too bright for her mind. Mind that didn't seem as fuzzy as it had been before._

 _With a start she turned to look around her, an endless projection of salted water and sand the only thing that welcomed her._

 _"There you are" She heard at her back, her own eyes staring back at her when she turned, naked feet taking a step backwards when she realized what she was looking at._

 _"Ellcrys"_

 _The other elf nodded as she casted a soft lopsided smile, eyes lost now on the horizon in front of them, the perpetual light of the beginning of the day, violet and cold gold grazing her skin._

 _"Is quite a relaxing place here" She answered after a few seconds of silence, the sound of the waves seeming to caress her words as she spoke. Wind blowing softly between the lose- fitting dress both Amberle and she seemed to wear; white and with an infinite amount of pleats._

 _"Is that why we are here?" The princess found herself asking, her voice strange as she work with her vocal cords, something that seemed to have been too long since she had last tried them._

 _The Ellcrys hummed and sighed, taking her gaze away from the water and back to the elf, one brow arching in a movement that seemed to have been taken drown from one of Amberle's mirrors as perfect as it was._

 _"We are here because your mind seemed troubled" She finally answered truthfully, her words laced with a strange accent the princess didn't seem able to recognize "We couldn't remain merged and so I thought that you would need the perspective of time"_

 _"Merged?" The word seemed wrong and Amberle tilted her head to one side, the memories of what had happened before the battle floating inside of her mind. Widening her eyes she felt a jolt cursing down her bones, the same feeling she had felt back when she had first met the Ellcrys._

 _"Merged" The Ellcrys repeated succinctly "Your mind seems more at ease now. Is always a complicated moment for the subconscious to accept the fate you took"_

 _Amberle frowned at such words, feeling once again the same strange bubbling thought she had grown accustomed to be clouding her judgement. More of herself being suckled by the girl who looked like her but still wasn't._

 _"Please" She found herself pleading, the dark abyss of nothing returning, her, she, the other one grinning as their minds turned once again into one._

 _"Just a little more time" The Ellcrys whispered._

 _The words made the princess swallow in fear, years and thoughts scrambled now, bubbles of thought forming behind her eyelids, closed for some reason. Names losing their meaning._

 _Except one._

 _"We promised that we will be back" She found herself thinking, the connotations of the "we" lost on her._

 _"Wait!"_

 _A scream that fell voiceless, a last pull that seemed to made the leaves at the other side tremble._

 _"Amberle?" Ander whispered glass on his left hand, liquor sloshing as he moved quickly towards the tree's trunk, the bark as warm as usual but as silent as well._

* * *

"Run!"

The scream echoed on almost every trunk of the forest as two elves found themselves running while trying not to fall on the slippery slopes the hill they were in had. Mud and dirt splashed beneath their boots and as Wil tried to keep breathing steadily he soon found out he was starting to feel tired, her lungs asking for a recess.

"Perk!" He exclaimed as the other boy at his side fumbled with the many pockets he had, extracting one object from one of them as they kept running. Behind them the scream and grunts of trolls swallowing their voices

"Just give me a minute!"

The forest was still dark enough for them to feel unsure on where they needed to step, their eyes not seeing anything else but the quickly passing shadows of forest and what the blond half-elf hoped to be just mere rocks. Licking his lips while clutching the bag he usually had hanging around his neck he felt the weight of the stones against the palm of his hand, wishing once again to be able to command the power at will.

"We really don't have a minute!" He asked glancing backwards where the stench and heavy footsteps of the trolls made him swallow.

They had spent almost one day and a half trying to find the clearing and structure that signaled the beginning of the tunnels, Wil's intricate yet more or less spot on description about the place having led them to one extreme of the forest, two hours away from where the half-elf calculated Utopia had stood once. They hadn't flight close enough to actually see if the city was intact but considering what had happened the blond had been reluctant to be apprach the place. Just in case.

The rest, as the forest had just thickened around them, had been decided by Perk to do it by foot. The young rider heavily interested on seeing such a great structure of what undoubtedly was something from the Old days.

Wil hadn't had any problems, thankful that he wasn't doing the travel alone anymore. Thoughts about both Amberle and Eretria filled his mind and even if he had tried to get a hold on Amberle's subconscious, like Allanon had hinted he would be able to, just silence had come back from that connection.

Nervous, he had led Perk to the entrance of Safehold, looking morosely at the place where the remains of the fire they had lifted just a few days ago were still visible, ash and now cold dark pieces of tree's bark looking back at him as he pointed at the stairs that would eventually led them to the corridors he had last seen the rover girl in.

"We would need to walk to the left" He had started to whisper, the map he had created on his mind as best as he had been able while running away fresh on his mind. "Then we will just need to…"

He hadn't been able to finish that sentence, the roaring sound of a troll stopping both him and Perk on their tracks and making both the rider and himself share a look of pure terror.

"Damn it"

And there they were, his horse had been left out next to where Perk had asked Genewen to wait for them and without it or the roc they had been forced to run, the quickly dimming light added to the fact they barely knew the place around them making it too easy for the trolls to spot them.

Fighting against the feeling of tiredness that threatened to overcome him and the beginning of what he was sure were going to be painful stabbing on one of his sides, he eyed the young elf at his side as the boy kept looking between the trees, waiting, expecting, for them to arrive at a point where the forest would open up enough for Genewen to heard them and flight towards were they were.

"There!" Perk screamed, his face lighting up as he pointed at one place at Wil's left, the light that shone there slightly less dark than the one that surrounded them. "There is an opening, if we can arrive there Genewen would be able to fly and..."

Wil opened his mouth to thank whatever karma or magic that seemed to have decided to be kind to them when he heard the troll's roar stronger than ever being responded for another that seemed to be slightly louder.

"They have asked for help" He realized, wheezing. He had become accustomed of running during the last weeks but the irregular floor of the forest was nothing but making everything harder and as he stomped on the leaves thick and soggy from the dampness that could be breathed on that part of the forest he found himself having troubles to keep with the slightly fitter elf at his side.

"Just a few more meters" Perk promised, his words lost when a screeching sound was heard and a shadow hovered over them just as they put a foot on the clearing, Wil almost falling but Perk quick enough to catch him.

Just as the roc soared Wil looked at the trolls at their feet, the creatures growling and screaming at them.

"Is strange" He found himself muttering "How quick they were"

"Trolls aren't as stupid as people think they are" The boy in front of him answered as he adjusted himself to Genewen's back, his hands falling comfortably at both sides of the roc's head.

The half-elf said nothing as he regained his breath but as he looked at the now far away figures he found himself nodding, the shadows of something that seemed to be the remains of a city illuminated now by the moon and making him look away in bitter regret.

"What are we going to do now?" Perk asked him sensing the dark mood the blond seemed to be immersed in.

Wil blinked at that, a part of her admitting somberly he hadn't thought to be possible to even be able to find Safehold once again.

"We could wait until day arrives and try to go inside" He offered, remembering that the beasts had seemed to be much more awake during nighttime. Perhaps they could try to use that to their advantage.

Perk, however, seemed uncomfortable with the idea and sighed, the back of his head the only thing Wil could see but enough for him to realize that what the rider was going to tell him wasn't going to be something he was going to probably enjoy.

"Perhaps we need help"

The words, screamed due to the wind that run around them reaching Wil ears as he moved forward on the roc's back.

"We can't leave her there" He argued but he knew that the rider was probably right; there was no way that having so many trolls down there entering and seeing if Eretria was still inside would be even possible.

"We won't" Perk argued "But you aren't useful to her dead"

Wil sighed and nodded, hoping that his silence was taken as his only answer. Apparently it did because the rider softly let Genewen move toward her left where a second clearing, bigger than the other one and far enough from the trolls to not be smelt by them, stood.

"We will see on the morning, yes?" The elf asked softly making Wil nod and close his eyes as the roc landed, his whole body trembled as he descended from it due to the brusque movement.

"We will see"

* * *

 _"Prove it"_

 _The words were light, soft, full of banter, full of something she couldn't remember how to name it anymore._

 _And yet the memory of lips, of fingers grasping the back of her head, of slowly tightening clothes, making her fight against the fuzzy thoughts around her._

 _"Prove it"_

 _Amberle frowned, she, no, the other her fuming inside of that part of her mind she didn't know she still had with her._

 _"We need to stay merged" She heard, a fact, a truth and as much as she understood that, the debt she had with the Elvish reigns as their princess there was another voice echoing there. A voice of a rover girl._

 _"Prove it"_


End file.
